• This is a political forum that is non-biased/non-partisan and treats every person's position on topics equally. This debate forum is not aligned to any political party. In today's politics, many ideas are split between and even within all the political parties. Often we find ourselves agreeing on one platform but some topics break our mold. We are here to discuss them in a civil political debate. If this is your first visit to our political forums, be sure to check out the RULES. Registering for debate politics is necessary before posting. Register today to participate - it's free!

The Most Divisive Partisan Presidency Since Nixon

They were saying he was so divisive right from the start. He takes the oath of office, the GOP throws an immediate temper-tantrum and then blames their tantrum on Obama and calls HIM divisive for it. Right out of the gates they decided to be the divisive ones... then project it.

The Party of No: New Details on the GOP Plot to Obstruct Obama

TIME just published “The Party of No,” an article adapted from my new book, The New New Deal: The Hidden Story of Change in the Obama Era. It reveals some of my reporting on the Republican plot to obstruct President Obama before he even took office, including secret meetings led by House GOP whip Eric Cantor (in December 2008) and Senate minority leader Mitch McConnell (in early January 2009) in which they laid out their daring (though cynical and political) no-honeymoon strategy of all-out resistance to a popular President-elect during an economic emergency. “If he was for it,” former Ohio Senator George Voinovich explained, “we had to be against it.” The excerpt includes a special bonus nugget of Mitt Romney dissing the Tea Party.

But as we say in the sales world: There’s more! I’m going to be blogging some of the news and larger themes from the book here at TIME.com, and I’ll kick it off with more scenes from the early days of the Republican strategy of No. Read on to hear what Joe Biden’s sources in the Senate GOP were telling him, some candid pillow talk between a Republican staffer and an Obama aide, and a top Republican admitting his party didn’t want to “play.” I’ll start with a scene I consider a turning point in the Obama era, when the new President went to the Hill to extend his hand and the GOP spurned it.

On Jan. 27, 2009, House Republican leader John Boehner opened his weekly conference meeting with an announcement: Obama would make his first visit to the Capitol around noon, to meet exclusively with Republicans about his economic-recovery plan. “We’re looking forward to the President’s visit,” Boehner said.

The niceties ended there, as Boehner turned to the $815 billion stimulus bill that House Democrats had just unveiled. Boehner complained that it would spend too much, too late, on too many Democratic goodies. He urged his members to trash it on cable, on YouTube, on the House floor: “It’s another run-of-the-mill, undisciplined, cumbersome, wasteful Washington spending bill … I hope everyone here will join me in voting no!”​


don't care... you're having a fundamental misunderstanding of what the word " presidency " means.

sure, Republican have been divisive as well... which is no way is evidence of Obama not being divisive.

it's plain old fact that Obama has not been about uniting anyone... he's most certainly divisive, and most certainly holds a disdain for those whom do not agree with his politics or agenda. ( you know, those folks who are "bitterly clinging to their god and guns")
 
I have never disagreed with you more. Krauthammer is the reason the term "partisan hack" was coined. He is and forever will be bitter and spiteful.

You can disagree. Not everyone likes him. I do. I find him to be very smart and thoughtful, even when i don't agree with him. In this article, he was spot on.
 
They were saying he was so divisive right from the start. He takes the oath of office, the GOP throws an immediate temper-tantrum and then blames their tantrum on Obama and calls HIM divisive for it. Right out of the gates they decided to be the divisive ones... then project it.

The Party of No: New Details on the GOP Plot to Obstruct Obama

TIME just published “The Party of No,” an article adapted from my new book, The New New Deal: The Hidden Story of Change in the Obama Era. It reveals some of my reporting on the Republican plot to obstruct President Obama before he even took office, including secret meetings led by House GOP whip Eric Cantor (in December 2008) and Senate minority leader Mitch McConnell (in early January 2009) in which they laid out their daring (though cynical and political) no-honeymoon strategy of all-out resistance to a popular President-elect during an economic emergency. “If he was for it,” former Ohio Senator George Voinovich explained, “we had to be against it.” The excerpt includes a special bonus nugget of Mitt Romney dissing the Tea Party.

But as we say in the sales world: There’s more! I’m going to be blogging some of the news and larger themes from the book here at TIME.com, and I’ll kick it off with more scenes from the early days of the Republican strategy of No. Read on to hear what Joe Biden’s sources in the Senate GOP were telling him, some candid pillow talk between a Republican staffer and an Obama aide, and a top Republican admitting his party didn’t want to “play.” I’ll start with a scene I consider a turning point in the Obama era, when the new President went to the Hill to extend his hand and the GOP spurned it.

On Jan. 27, 2009, House Republican leader John Boehner opened his weekly conference meeting with an announcement: Obama would make his first visit to the Capitol around noon, to meet exclusively with Republicans about his economic-recovery plan. “We’re looking forward to the President’s visit,” Boehner said.

The niceties ended there, as Boehner turned to the $815 billion stimulus bill that House Democrats had just unveiled. Boehner complained that it would spend too much, too late, on too many Democratic goodies. He urged his members to trash it on cable, on YouTube, on the House floor: “It’s another run-of-the-mill, undisciplined, cumbersome, wasteful Washington spending bill … I hope everyone here will join me in voting no!”​

So Boehner should have said "Hey, this $815 billion stimulus bill that the other party presented is really neato, and we should just ignore the wishes of all of the people who voted us into our jobs and roll over, play dead, and pass it, because Obama is new on the job". Is that about right?
 
So Boehner should have said "Hey, this $815 billion stimulus bill that the other party presented is really neato, and we should just ignore the wishes of all of the people who voted us into our jobs and roll over, play dead, and pass it, because Obama is new on the job". Is that about right?

No nothing like that. They shouldn't have held a meeting before he even had a chance to start and decide to say no to everything he did. They themselves ruled out compromise, debate and discussion right then and there. Then they whine about how it's his fault.
 
nobody has said he's the only divisive one....the argument is that his is the most divisive partisan presidency since Nixon.( I'm not really sure about that, and there's really no metric to use as proof or it's veracity, or to debunk it.)

as Republicans , over the last 7 years, haven't held the Presidency, they are rather irreverent to the argument.

Look at this graph again :

ImageUploadedByTapatalk1452896578.859940.jpg

Notice how President Bush 2's starting approval rating wasn't that bad among democrats ? Me too. Notice how President Bush 2's approval rating among republicans fell during his presidency ? Me too.

Now look at President Obama. The democrats still love him as much as they did when he entered, and if you look at the republicans, only a handful approved of him out the gate and that steadily declined.

Compare that to President Nixon. President Nixon had plummeting approval ratings under republicans, look at that spike. By the end, his own party's approval rating fell to 50%.

President Nixon wasn't divisive so much as overall disliked. And President Obama is very likable, as well as reasonable. What you're really measuring is the republican perception and not the reality. And that republican perception is the most potent source of divisiveness in American politics.
 
You can disagree. Not everyone likes him. I do. I find him to be very smart and thoughtful, even when i don't agree with him. In this article, he was spot on.
Hi Tres -

For the most part I don't agree with him necessarily either, but I do highly respect his thought process and insight, enough so that I go out of my way to watch him when I can.

My understanding is he was a liberal, who then became conservative, and wrote a book on his conversion, which I once looked for but couldn't find. I'm dying to read it though.

I do agree with him once in a while, but too often I do find him highly partisan, to the point of his stretching the facts, but that's just my opinion.

But damn, he's got a great political mind! The Right is lucky to have him.
 
Hi Tres -

For the most part I don't agree with him necessarily either, but I do highly respect his thought process and insight, enough so that I go out of my way to watch him when I can.

My understanding is he was a liberal, who then became conservative, and wrote a book on his conversion, which I once looked for but couldn't find. I'm dying to read it though.

I do agree with him once in a while, but too often I do find him highly partisan, to the point of his stretching the facts, but that's just my opinion.

But damn, he's got a great political mind! The Right is lucky to have him.

I've seen him brazenly lie far too often to take anything he says seriously.
 
A few months?


I'm at a loss to understand your theories.

not theories. facts. Obama demonized his enemies from the word go(read the article).

I don't understand what you're missing. Obama pledged to bring us all together, which was BS along with the "hope and change" nonsense everyone bought.

so when it turns out that not only did he fail to bring anyone together, but made moves which DIRECTLY led to them being far apart, how can anyone take him seriously when he pleads for "rational discourse"?

The man himself has become an ironic symbol; an arrogant, stubborn, underhanded politician..........just like Nixon, god love him
 
I think I have to agree with the article. But that was what was the danger of electing a man without experience and only populist visions as a plan.

What is so horrible is that we are on the verge of doing it again.

Well I am not a real fan sell out for Charles Krauthammer. Sometimes he is point on but the guy is an establishment player and no one produced more hit pieces against other Republican candidates during the 2008 and 2012 election than Krauthammer. He was all in for the establishment like stink on ****. He used his poison pen to trash any candidate that became a threat to the one the establishment was rallying around.

Well Romney and McCain which he both supported turned out to be losers. If Krauthammer would have used his journalistic skills to force vetting of Obama in the media exposing what exactly Obama meant by Hope and Change instead of using his poison pen to go after any GOP candidate that posed a threat to his beloved establishment candidate then he would have creds today. It's a little late to be critiquing Obama. He had an opportunity to be a real investigative journalist and delve into who and what Obama really stood for before he was elected but was too busy protecting the establishment candidate of his liking.
 
I'll defend Obama on this one. He hasn't helped, but the GOP hasn't either .
And there are so many hyperpartisan media outlets now, that only fans flames.
Back in the day, the media was almost all liberal but they at least pretended they weren't.

Hasn't helped?

Tell me, when did he ever invite GOP leaders to the White House for a working lunch? You see, I ask because that's what other presidents have done in times of crisis. FDR was not the first, Johnson did it, along with Nixon, Reagan and apparently both Bush's.

What did Obama do? He strutted into the White House and called all Republicans his "enemies" and then proved himself to be the most vengeful mother****er to ever inhabit the Oral Office. Obama set new presidents for the **** games he played with Republicans and cheered on his henchman Harry ****ing Reid who shelved EVERY BILL presented by the opposition and capped it off by basically committing slander against Romney in the only place he could not be sued.

We are talking about the lowest, dirtiest, most petty bull**** a president has ever done.

Leaders unite. Losers attack their opponents.....and that all that asshole did. There was no onus on the GOP to try to find some common ground and when they did got it shoved down their throats.

I said as much as seven years ago, pray to whatever god you know that the GOP doesn't get a sweep of the White House, Senate and Congress as the Deamoncrats who ****ed over their counterparts are in for some payback.
 
from another great article(is there another kind?) from C. Krauthammer.

Talking about Obama's State of the Union address:


https://www.washingtonpost.com/opin...7c4924-baf9-11e5-b682-4bb4dd403c7d_story.html

his point is clear: Obama should be the last one to talk about being rational and dealing fairly with the other party when he spent SEVEN YEARS doing the exact opposite. did he think we wouldn't notice?!

Oh Puh-lease. Obama spent the majority of his first two years in office bending over backwards to try to appease the "Party of NO", who made it clear that their only objective was to make sure he was a one-term President (which they failed at miserably). Most of the Democrats I know were extremely frustrated with Obama throughout his first term for not standing up to the GOP and for trying to compromise everything (Hell...its how we ended up with the horrible Heritage Foundation/Republican insurance mandate as part of the ACA). While it is true that Obama finally "got it" and realized that the Republican Party of NO was never going to work with him....the whole standing up to them is something that has really only happened in the last couple of year....no where never SEVEN YEARS.
 
from another great article(is there another kind?) from C. Krauthammer.

Talking about Obama's State of the Union address:


https://www.washingtonpost.com/opin...7c4924-baf9-11e5-b682-4bb4dd403c7d_story.html

his point is clear: Obama should be the last one to talk about being rational and dealing fairly with the other party when he spent SEVEN YEARS doing the exact opposite. did he think we wouldn't notice?!

Obama is a joke that even leftists would rather forget about.

This is "hope and change".
 
What Nixon did was minor compared to Hillary.

He was run out of office by the media. She's being ignored and protected.

Obama has had free PR service from the media for eight years.

What Hillary did is minor compared to Obama.

He and Holder saw fit to ensure that firearms were smuggled across the Mexican border with the express intention of having those weapons end up in the hands of criminals. This was done so that when those weapons were used in the commission of a crime the liberals could run to the nearest CNN crew and say "See, this is why we need stricter gun control." Never mind that it is them that is ensuring the weapons got across the border in the first place. Sure enough, hundreds of Mexicans and a US Border Patrol Agent were killed by firearms that the Obama administration ensured the safe passage of. I mean what Hillary did is a felony, no doubt of that, but at least she wasn't "directly" involved in an operation that resulted in the death of foreign nationals.
 
Obama: Healthcare Bill. Hey republicans, come give me your ideas.
GOP: Here ya go.
Obama: I shall ignore your ideas, NOW go screw yourselves------BILL PASSES

It's been six years. They still haven't offered an alternative.

Can we stop pretending at this point they were somehow frozen out because Obama is just so mean? It should be pretty clear by this point the fundamental barrier to them getting more involved was that they actually just don't have any different ideas.
 
Oh Puh-lease. Obama spent the majority of his first two years in office bending over backwards to try to appease the "Party of NO", who made it clear that their only objective was to make sure he was a one-term President (which they failed at miserably). Most of the Democrats I know were extremely frustrated with Obama throughout his first term for not standing up to the GOP and for trying to compromise everything (Hell...its how we ended up with the horrible Heritage Foundation/Republican insurance mandate as part of the ACA). While it is true that Obama finally "got it" and realized that the Republican Party of NO was never going to work with him....the whole standing up to them is something that has really only happened in the last couple of year....no where never SEVEN YEARS.

Are you sure you are remembering this correctly?

In his first 2 years he had control of the house and senate.

Why would he need to bend over backwards for the GOP?
 
not theories. facts. Obama demonized his enemies from the word go(read the article).

I don't understand what you're missing. Obama pledged to bring us all together, which was BS along with the "hope and change" nonsense everyone bought.

so when it turns out that not only did he fail to bring anyone together, but made moves which DIRECTLY led to them being far apart, how can anyone take him seriously when he pleads for "rational discourse"?

The man himself has become an ironic symbol; an arrogant, stubborn, underhanded politician..........just like Nixon, god love him
Yes, technically you can say he "promised to bring everyone together", and it didn't happen.

But you make it sound like this can be done unilaterally, and it can't.

By your logic a marriage where one partner wants it to work should always succeed, when we know a marriage can only succeed with two willing partners.

Your statements sound overly idealistic and naive, if you believe one man can bring many unwilling others to agreement.
 
It's been six years. They still haven't offered an alternative.

Can we stop pretending at this point they were somehow frozen out because Obama is just so mean? It should be pretty clear by this point the fundamental barrier to them getting more involved was that they actually just don't have any different ideas.

You should read and watch sources other than left wing ones. You would know that Republicans have offered a number of alternatives to the disastrous ACA.
 
You should read and watch sources other than left wing ones. You would know that Republicans have offered a number of alternatives to the disastrous ACA.

Not really, no. But this might finally be the year!

Ryan vows to offer ObamaCare replacement plan in 2016
Speaker Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) said Thursday he plans to roll out a long-awaited replacement plan for ObamaCare in 2016, lifting healthcare reform to the top of the House GOP’s agenda in a presidential election year.

Once they finish that up, maybe they can time travel back 7 years and take part in the health reform debate.
 
You should read and watch sources other than left wing ones. You would know that Republicans have offered a number of alternatives to the disastrous ACA.
Of course they haven't. And they can't. Any time a republican tries to come up with something they end up describing the ACA. That's because the ACA is a Republican plan.

It's like there's this strange alternate 1984 type universe where history is constantly being rewritten.

I think Obama's biggest "failure" is that he's too practical. There was nothing to give the GOP on the ACA because he included their best ideas from the get go because it was the right thing to do. And he rejected the Democrats single payer plans because it was the wrong thing to do.

Obama isn't perfect, but apply those standards to any other modern president. None of them stack up.
 
Back
Top Bottom